


Fox-Faced

by Senri



Category: Blade of the Immortal
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 16:34:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2474969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senri/pseuds/Senri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hyakurin and Rin, the night after Rin's trip through the underground prison.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fox-Faced

**Author's Note:**

  * For [transversely](https://archiveofourown.org/users/transversely/gifts).



In the low light, as always, Rin was a pretty girl. She was slated to grow up prettier, Hyakurin could guess: she had the fox-faced look men loved, with the cheeks that could cut paper, the narrow chin, the thin eyebrows and big eyes. Some man was going to be happy to land her someday. But that was in the future, because here and now she was under Hyakurin’s hands.

She curled up in the bath like a little child and her knees never broke the surface of the water; now and again her head bobbed sleepily down, and then she pulled it back up. “Good girl,” Hyakurin said, pouring a bucket of water over her head, “Don’t drown in a bath, no samurai should die like that.”

Rin peeked over a shoulder. “You’d rescue me, wouldn’t you?”

“I would,” Hyakurin said, with a laugh, after a moment. “You can count on old Hyakurin.”

The room was empty besides for them, and dark with the darkness outside. The lanterns lit it up but only enough to be mysterious; Rin’s skin was the color of marble in the low light, except where it was the color of storm clouds with bruises. Hyakurin was gentle and careful when she began to scrub Rin’s back, but the girl winced anyhow, and Hyakurin crooned through her teeth absentmindedly to soothe the poor child. “There, my girl…”

“I’m all right, it’s only a bruise,” Rin said, and Hyakurin said, “Brave girl. A hit hard enough can kill you, so don’t speak too badly of your bruises.”

Rin sneezed into the water, then said, “I suppose so. But Hyakurin – didn’t I do well?”

“You did _very_ well,” said Hyakurin with finality. “Just think of it! Two little girls and me on the outside, rescuing your men from how many soldiers? People should be singing about you.” Although she knew of course they wouldn’t be; and it would be too dangerous anyway, to throw Rin’s name too high. “Have you thought about what you’ll do next?”

“More training?”

“It’s my opinion that you should leave Edo for a little while with your man, little Rin. Stand up.” 

Rin stood, obediently, and Hyakurin poured another bucket of water over her while Rin shivered in the cool night air. Her hair stuck to her face and she wrapped her arms around herself. Young girls like this, Hyakurin thought, paying for the sins of their parents and grandparents. Women like me paying for the sins of their husbands. Hyakurin wrapped a cloth around the girl and began to towel her dry.

“You think so?” said Rin, picking up the last thread of their conversation. It took Hyakurin a moment to cotton on to what she was referring to, as she rubbed the cloth over Rin’s hair, her shoulders, her sides, not thinking too much about any step in the process but admiring the girl before her. It would have needed a woman with the wiles of the fox to penetrate so deeply into the bloody conspiracy, the closed buildings teeming with soldiers, wouldn’t it? She almost expected the russet bottle-brush of a tail to be sprouting from Rin’s tailbone, tipped with a white flag, but no, of course not.

“Sure do, honey,” Hyakurin said. “Step out now.” And Rin did while Hyakurin went on: “I think you and your man ought to clear out for a bit, the both of you. You’re both known names at the moment, isn’t that right? Maybe you don’t want to be waving yourself under the government’s nose too much, eh?”

“Maybe not,” Rin agreed, after a moment. “I’ll talk to Manji about it. I guess we did – “ She looked up, eye bright, “I guess we really did outdo them, didn’t we? All of us! Thank you, Hyakurin.”

“It wasn’t nothing, child,” and it was easy to smile, now, “Sometimes I like seeing those pigs get theirs, you know what I mean? Now go set down, I’ll comb your hair.”

The room was outfitted with a bare wooden stool, which Rin sat herself upon, shivering slightly. Hyakurin stood behind her and pulled the comb through her hair, gentle on the tangles, stroking knots out until she could run the comb from root to tip of Rin’s hair and not encounter any snarl or obstacle. Rin, skin still prickled with gooseflesh, nevertheless tilted her head back and sighed. 

“We did it, though,” she murmured, eyes closed, head tilted back. In the light shadows pooled in her eyes, under her jaw, under her breasts; it was like being caught in an illusion, or it could have been, and it made Hyakurin pull the comb a bit harder and sigh very quietly. “Together. I still can’t believe it!” And then her eyes came open and her face was enlivened by her smile. “Does this make us _heroes?_ ”

“Some people would call you by the name, I’m sure,” Hyakurin said, and stroked Rin’s temples with her fingertips. “All right, that’s enough with your hair, stand now and I’ll help dress you.”

It hurt Rin to raise her arms, Hyakurin could see, so she swooshed the sleeping robe around her gently, and tied it for her instead of making her move more. Standing front to front, Hyakurin without her heels, they were about the same height, and Rin looking up at her with eyes luminous. Hyakurin was infused suddenly not so much with the desire to kiss her but with the desire to sweep Rin up in her arms and find someplace to hide her, some dense thicket or sloping den where she would be kept from the dangerous world. It was an impossible wish, she knew as she thought it, and reached to sweep Rin’s hair up from the back of her robe where it had been caught. In spite of the toweling it was still heavy and cool with water.

“Thank you, Hyakurin,” Rin said, and reached up and placed her hands over Hyakurin’s, pressing them affectionately.

“Anything for you, my brave girl,” Hyakurin said, and meant it.

Rin would go back to Manji and sleep in the same room with him, they would all sleep in the same room together, she would not belong solely to Hyakurin for a long time if ever. Still Hyakurin felt the deep wave of protectiveness and also something else, a feeling she couldn’t identify, something she would have described with the smell of new snow, a certain weird sensation of lightness. She could have called it hope, maybe; fierce and worried for the future, crossing her fingers for Rin who would strive against an uphill battle the whole time, who would run up mountains, rip fingernails on hard-packed soil and the stones churned within, who needed her friends but could perhaps be counted upon to wring out a victory from the terrible odds.

Poor girl, they needed to have other shapes, the both of them: they needed escape routes, the mountain forests and thickets, the ability to cast illusions, beguile men, and disappear in a flash. 

Rin hugged her tight and close when Hyakurin embraced her in spite of the bruises. Hyakurin for her part tried to be gentle. “All right,” Rin whispered close to Hyakurin’s ear, “I’m ready. Let’s go out.”

“All right, child,” Hyakurin said, her heart heavy, but possibly light too: or maybe a better word was buoyant, not floating nor sinking neither, not yet. “Brave girl. I’m glad you asked for my help.”


End file.
